Turtles all the way down.

How to tether an Android Phone to an ASUS RT-N56U router.

I sold a router on eBay to somebody who then contacted me to say he was having problems getting a USB dongle to connect properly and could I help. I don’t have a Dongle but I have used the router without any problem connecting via a tethered Android Phone. I created a tutorial to walk him through it, and thought I might as well post it here to help anyone else in need as it isn’t 100% plug and play.

1) Ensure router is in ‘Wireless Router’ mode

2) Go to the USB Application page:

3) My phone has a 3 SIM in it, so these are the settings it needs. A quick Google search should retrieve the settings for other Carrier SIM cards.

4) Hit Apply and the router will reboot:

5) Once the router has rebooted: On the Android phone go to the settings page for Hotspots and Tethering and turn on USB tethering. This will be slightly different for the various Android phones out there.

6) The router will still show as disconnected, but the Android phone should be showing as a device in one of the USB ports. It will show in a different position depending on which USB port it is plugged in to, but it will work the same in either:

9) This displays the setup for the whole router (including for some reason your WiFi passwords!), click Next:

10) You will be taken back to the home page and you should see your router is connected via the USB modem. The IP address is a LAN address as the router creates a LAN connection to the phone over the USB port. The actual WAN address is whatever the phone is using to connect to your carrier.

The process isn’t the most logical as it is possible to get stuck in a loop of hitting the Connect button on the USB modem page thinking it will connect you, when actually it just reboots the router.

I would expect the process to be similar for a USB dongle.

If there are any differences though please let me know in the comments.